Quilter sells life insurance business to SwissRe for £425m

By Frank Prenesti

Date: Monday 05 Aug 2019

LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Quilter on Monday said Swiss Re had agreed to buy its closed book life insurance and pensions business for £425m.The sale would "further act to solidify Quilter's position as an advice led, modern wealth manager", the company said in a statement.

Chief executive Paul Feeney said the company was "currently minded to return a meaningful proportion of the net surplus proceeds arising from the transaction to shareholders and will consult with them on the most appropriate means of undertaking this".

SwissRe said the deal would add more than 200,000 customer policies and £12bn of assets to ReAssure's platform.

The business consisted of Old Mutual Wealth Life Assurance Limited and its subsidiary Old Mutual Wealth Pensions Trustees Limited and includes about 300 employees.

The transaction will increase SwissRe's ReAssure unit's total policy count to 4.5m and assets under administration to £81bn, Swiss Re said in a statement.

Quilter also reported a 5% rise in adjusted first half profits to £115m.

"Quilter produced a solid set of results for the first half of 2019, as evidenced by growth in adjusted profit before tax with revenues growing modestly faster than costs and a stable operating margin," Feeney said.

"We are focused on making Quilter a simpler, more efficient wealth management business, and the announcement today of the sale of Quilter Life Assurance is a further significant step forward in this regard."